Sid Roth - An Angel Came to Our Door! What He Did Next Will Amaze You with Phil and Vicki Church
Sid Roth: Your nine-month-old daughter has a tumor on the brain and then you meet an angel. Next on this edition of It's Supernatural.
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter and I can't wait to find out what the Church's have to say. Vicky, in 1971, you have a bouncing, beautiful little girl, Jennifer, but?
Vicky Church: They started running blood tests as they normally. One was for PKU and it's the body's inability to break down protein. It causes mental retardation. They started running...
Sid Roth: That's a very scary thing for a parent to have.
Vicky Church: Very, very. She was so beautiful and perfect to us. So they had to just keep running these blood tests and they told us that she would be retarded, but...
Sid Roth: You had two normal children.
Vicky Church: Yes. And when we took her home she appeared to be just fine, but she cried a lot. And as she began to grow and walk, crawl, she began to have these seizure-like activities where she would be have so much energy that my husband and I couldn't even hold her down when she would have a seizure.
Sid Roth: Phil, you're a pretty strong individual. You're in construction. Maybe I don't know, do you body-build or something?
Phil Church: No.
Sid Roth: Just in construction.
Phil Church: Just in construction.
Sid Roth: You couldn't hold down your own daughter?
Phil Church: Well a small child like that, it was almost like she was a fish out of water, you know, how they just twist and turn, and it's hard to hold to them. And we had to keep her protected so that she didn't hurt herself, throw herself against something. And in our arms, she would just twist and turn, and she was so hyper that...
Sid Roth: You must have felt pretty helpless. Here's this little baby that's yours.
Phil Church: Well didn't have any idea what was exactly wrong with her. They had diagnosed with PKU, but then later on they kept running the tests and the doctors said, well the state regulates this and they said that the test score, however they do the test, was just borderline. So they weren't going to give her this, it's a certain formula that a child has to take if they have this, so that it prevents them from getting the retardation and keeps them from having the problems that a PKU baby has. I don't understand the whole situation.
Sid Roth: But it started getting worse. What happened?
Vicky Church: Right. As she began to start walking, she walked at a very early age compared to the other two. Then she would run from one side of the room to the other, just endlessly. There would be 45 days and nights when she would not show signs of being sleepy or tired. We'd have to take turns just staying up with her to care for her. And at that time we had to take her somewhere else because we knew something more was going on. So our doctor referred us to Kansas, KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. So we took her up there and we were there a full week of just endless tests that were just torturous. They would, I would be holding her.
Sid Roth: Were they torturous to you or torturous to her?
Vicky Church: Both. Both.
Sid Roth: Why was it torturous to her?
Vicky Church: Because she didn't understand what was going on. They wouldn't let us in the rooms with her.
Sid Roth: She was just, what, nine months old.
Vicky Church: About, yes, right at nine months. And they would tear her out of our arms screaming, she was so afraid, take her into these rooms and they'd put needles into her. They were doing all these things that she didn't understand why and we had to stay outside the room and hear her, and it was just agony to go through that. And they ran quite a few tests and x-rays, and things on her brain. And then they came out and told us that she had a brain tumor, and the position it was in, it was very doubtful that she would live.
Sid Roth: How did you take that news, Phil?
Phil Church: It was a such a shock that it just kind of, you didn't know what to think. You didn't know who to trust. Like she said, they had taken her out of our arms, and of course she was scared, and they poked her with needles, drawing blood for different tests and it was just like, it was unreal what was happening.
Sid Roth: This is supposed to happen to someone else. It's not supposed to happen to you.
Phil Church: Yeah. It's just, we couldn't believe it.
Sid Roth: So Vicky, what happened next?
Vicky Church: They told us they could an experimental surgery on her.
Sid Roth: That doesn't sound too good.
Vicky Church: It was laser surgery. Back then that was very new. That they would have to position it just right or she could die. And if she lived through the surgery she would more likely be a total vegetable.
Sid Roth: So if you don't do the surgery she dies and if you do the surgery she'll be a vegetable?
Vicky Church: She'll never be able to learn.
Sid Roth: That's an awful choice. What did you opt for?
Vicky Church: We decided to go ahead with the surgery and they told us, we wanted to bring her home so we can be with her sisters, not knowing whether she would ever come home again. We brought her home.
Sid Roth: Did the doctors say it was okay to bring her home?
Vicky Church: Yes, but to be very careful with her.
Sid Roth: Why?
Vicky Church: Because if she bumped her head it would be all over. She would die instantly.
Sid Roth: That sounded pretty risky to even bring her home.
Vicky Church: Yes.
Sid Roth: I'm surprised you did that.
Vicky Church: I think it was the Lord giving us this peace about bringing her home. It was an urgency that we felt inside that we needed to.
Sid Roth: How did her sister take to her? I guess her sisters might not have even know what was going on or did they?
Vicky Church: They pretty well did. They did, yes. And knew they always had to be careful with her. And they were very careful with her when we brought her home. And my sister Doris had come over that weekend and was watching the other two girls while we were in Kansas City. Well while we were home, she just seemed to get more and more agitated. So we all were taking turns entertaining her and cuddling her, and all that. And while we were home though, there was a knock on our door.
Sid Roth: Would you hold that thought. While they were home there was a knock on their door and you're not going to believe, yes, maybe you will, such an incredible couple. And this is documented. This is amazing. We'll be right back. Find out what happened from that knock on the door.
Sid Roth: Hello Sid Roth your investigative reporter and I'm here with Vicky and Phil Church. Their daughter, tumor on the brain. If she operates she becomes a vegetable. If they don't operate, the baby is dead. Not much of a choice. They bring the baby home so the older children can be with their sister for perhaps the last time. And all of a sudden, and by the way, if they drop the baby, Jennifer, she dies. Be very careful, doctors said. So the whole thing is just unreal. It shouldn't happen to a nice family. And there is a knock at the door and who answered the door?
Phil Church: I went to the door and there was a gentleman standing on the porch. We lived close to the highway and he was dressed in rags and he had been on the road several days. You could tell he had several days' growth of beard and he was shabby and dirty.
Sid Roth: Just what you need. I mean, tell me, did you think in your mind, oh no?
Phil Church: Well we had several people come to the door before, you know, right on the highway. And so it wasn't uncommon, but most of the time we were a little leery. For some reason, I didn't seem to have that much concern with this person.
Sid Roth: Tell me how he looked.
Phil Church: Well he was dressed just shabby, had a hat on, kind of dirty from the road and he asked for something to eat. He said, "Would you give me something to eat if I sweep off your porch"? And I said, "Well you don't have to sweep the porch, but sure we'll give you something to eat". And so he said, "Well I’d feel better if I swept the porch". I said, okay. So I gave him the broom and my wife went in to prepare something for him, and she brought it out.
Sid Roth: Vicky, you certainly must have been a little like, not now. My daughter is home. She's going to who knows what? Did you have any of those thoughts?
Vicky Church: No, none.
Sid Roth: No? Why?
Vicky Church: It was incredible because it was like he was supposed to be there. It was like he was a welcomed guest in our house. It was just so strange because like he said, we had other people come to the door and sometimes you just didn't even answer the door. But this man, it was like he belonged in our living room.
Sid Roth: Strange, to me anyway.
Vicky Church: Very strange, very.
Sid Roth: So what happened?
Vicky Church: I brought the food out and he just a little, not very much. And when I started to take the plate back my husband would talk to him about Jennifer and what had happened to her, and what was going to happen. Well Jennifer was so terrified of everyone that she wouldn't even go to relatives.
Sid Roth: Because of all the treatment she had.
Vicky Church: Right.
Sid Roth: And just wanted to be with mommy and daddy.
Vicky Church: That's right. And all of a sudden she was across the room, and all of a sudden she just toddled right across the room.
Sid Roth: What, if she falls she could die.
Vicky Church: Right.
Sid Roth: You let her just toddle across the room to this stranger?
Vicky Church: Yes. We were just so stunned because she was not afraid. And she walked up to him and she just reached up her arms to him, and at that point we were totally stunned.
Sid Roth: I can imagine. So what did he do?
Vicky Church: He bent down and picked her up.
Sid Roth: You let him? You're the mother. I would not. How did you let him do that?
Phil Church: Well it was kind of a surprise to begin with because she wouldn't come to strangers. And he just bent down and reached for her.
Sid Roth: Because it happened too fast for you to even process.
Phil Church: Yes.
Vicky Church: Right.
Phil Church: And he just took her in his arms and she seemed to accept it. And he started talking to her, you know. He just reached up and he touched her head, and he says, "Little angel, you're not going to have to have that operation". And I, it really didn't hit me, you know.
Sid Roth: What did you think when he said that?
Vicky Church: I was just standing there in amazement.
Sid Roth: So he says, "Little angel".
Phil Church: Yeah.
Sid Roth: Little angel, you're not going to need that operation. Okay.
Phil Church: Yeah. He said that. And just kind of touched her on the head. He just felt her head, you know, and he says, "You know, little angel, you're not going to have to have that operation". And he put her back down and he says, "I've got something for you". He reached in his pocket and it was probably the only money he had from the looks of it, but he gave her a nickel. He says, "Here, take this nickel". And then turned around and he says, "Well I've got to be going now". something to those words. And he started out the door. My wife went to take the plate back into the kitchen, and just seconds was all it took, passed. But he walked out the door and my wife said, "Where did he go"? I said, "Well he just went outside. Do you need to catch him for something"? She said, "Well you know, I'd just like to see, you know, say goodbye to him or whatever". And so we went out the door and we're right there on the highway, but everything is fairly open, and we couldn't find him anywhere. And he had not had time to get out on the highway and catch a ride.
Sid Roth: Are you telling me he disappeared?
Phil Church: He just vanished.
Sid Roth: You really believe that, too.
Vicky Church: I believe it.
Phil Church: It was just, it wasn't like...
Sid Roth: You know an artist did a sketch of this man.
Vicky Church: Yes.
Sid Roth: Tell me about that sketch.
Phil Church: Well my wife had, we had been going to some Lowell Lundstrom Ministry crusades that he had.
Vicky Church: Marriage seminars.
Phil Church: Yeah, they were marriage seminars and we had told them about the story, and just in conversation, and they had, one of the ladies that worked with the ministry.
Vicky Church: Gloria. We shared the story at the seminars several times.
Phil Church: Go ahead.
Vicky Church: So they wanted to put it in a magazine and I had told her about the man and what he looked like, and he had a plaid shirt on. That was so vivid to me, that plaid shirt. And so as they were printing up the story getting ready for the magazine, they send their descriptions off to an artist and he does the layout for the artwork.
Sid Roth: How close was the rendering to the way the man looked?
Vicky Church: It was exactly. It was exactly that man.
Sid Roth: Exactly! Did you hear that? It was exactly!
Sid Roth: Hello, Sid Roth here. This is getting very strange. I mean, a stranger comes in. The little girl who is afraid, Jennifer, afraid of everyone because of what she's been going through, you drop her, she dies. The parents let this man who looks like a hobo, a bum literally, hold your baby who if she drops, is dropped, that's the end of her. You have, he goes outside. He says, "Little angel, you'll be okay". He goes outside. You look outside. There's nowhere for him to have gone. He's poof, he's gone. You have an artist draw a picture of this man. How close did the picture look like him?
Vicky Church: That was him.
Sid Roth: That was him.
Vicky Church: It was perfect, right down to the flannel shirt. It was absolutely the same man.
Sid Roth: And our guest next week says that's a picture of the angel that he saw. All right, the big question is: Your daughter, what happened to Jennifer?
Phil Church: Well naturally she had been used to being held and cuddled, and taken extreme care with. And so she was a little used to that. And of course, she still was a little bit hyper, but the symptoms seemed to disappear pretty quickly after that.
Sid Roth: The same night?
Phil Church: Well from that point on, yes, we could tell a difference. She was still a little hyper, but not near what she was, and it passed away fairly quickly.
Sid Roth: She slept. She started sleeping.
Vicky Church: She slept that night.
Sid Roth: Was she not sleeping?
Vicky Church: No, she went 4 to 5 days and nights with no sleep.
Sid Roth: Four to five days and nights?
Vicky Church: That's right. We would have to take turns staying up with her because she didn't even appear to be tired.
Sid Roth: So you take her back to the hospital. Did you know that she would not have to submit to the surgery, as you're taking her back, or what were you thinking?
Vicky Church: No, we really didn't. But we had a good strong faith in God, and we had been praying for her. But we took her back and they took her in the room again and started all these tests. They had to know exactly where to go with the laser. So pretty soon doctors and nurses started running in and out of there, and we got really concerned at that point. And her main doctor came out, and he just shook his head and he says, "I cannot explain what's happened,", but he said, "all I can tell you to do is take your daughter home and raise her like a normal child. We could not find anything wrong with her".
Sid Roth: Oh come on. Now give me a break. She was supposed to have surgery that she'd end up being retarded or a vegetable, as you put it. And then all of a sudden they say, send her back. Did they have a better explanation than that?
Vicky Church: They could not understand it.
Sid Roth: Get me another doctor.
Phil Church: We had seen the x-ray.
Vicky Church: Right.
Phil Church: And it showed a mass in her brain and when we took her back the doctors couldn't find it. That's all there is.
Sid Roth: Where did it go?
Vicky Church: God healed her and took it away.
Phil Church: Yes.
Sid Roth: Okay. That was back in '71. Tell me about baby Jennifer today.
Vicky Church: Today she is graduated from high school with top grades. She graduated from college. She's married now.
Sid Roth: The one that would have been a vegetable or dead.
Vicky Church: That's right. That's right.
Sid Roth: Thanks to this, this...
Vicky Church: Miracle.
Sid Roth: No. Was this an angel?
Vicky Church: Yes.
Sid Roth: Was this an angel?
Phil Church: It had to have been.
Sid Roth: Any doubt?
Vicky Church: No doubt whatsoever.
Sid Roth: Any doubt?
Phil Church: No.
Sid Roth: You have a favorite scripture. What is that?
Phil Church: Hebrews 13. You know, I knew it in my head, like I said, at the time, I didn't, we weren't, we believed in God, but as far as scripture goes, we didn't know, but we had heard. And I just knew this in my mind, "Entertaining angels unaware". And I looked it up, Hebrews, 13th Chapter, and it said to not to...
Sid Roth: Entertain a stranger because it could be an angel.
Phil Church: Entertain strangers because you could be entertaining angels unaware. And I looked that scripture up and read it to my wife.
Sid Roth: Now your faith must be zoom.
Vicky Church: Yes.
Sid Roth: Let me, you know, you told me that you have a lot more prayer children. What did you mean by prayer children? What did you mean?
Vicky Church: God has given me, I think a special gift to pray for women who have been told they cannot have children.
Sid Roth: There's a lot of women that are watching us right now like that.
Sid Roth: How many women have you prayed for that were told medically they can't have a child, can't have children?
Vicky Church: Nine.
Sid Roth: Nine? Are you ready for ten?
Vicky Church: Oh yes.
Sid Roth: Do you really believe that if there are women watching that cannot have children and some of them are married, of course.
Vicky Church: Right.
Sid Roth: And want to have children that you can pray, and they will have children?
Vicky Church: If God directs me to.
Sid Roth: Does God direct you to pray right now?
Vicky Church: I'd like to, yes.
Sid Roth: Would you look right at them and pray.
Vicky Church: If you're wanting a child right now and the doctors have told you there's no hope, there is hope. There's hope in God. If you believe what the Bible tells you that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and God is a healing God, so whatever is preventing that, we just call it healed in the name of Jesus. If you reach out to God right now in Jesus' name, Father, in the name of Jesus, we pray for this. Father, we know that there is one right now that's kneeling and crying because she desires a child so much. She's lost a baby. Father, we ask you right now to restore what the enemy has taken. Lord, we thank you that even as we speak she may already be pregnant. Father, we thank you and we give you all the glory.
Sid Roth: In Jesus' name. And you know what I know? I know something about you. I know that God answered that prayer. I don't think it. I don't hope it. I know it. Vicky, you know it, too, don't you?
Vicky Church: Yes.
Sid Roth: You know it. I know it. I know it. We want you to write us as soon as you can get that good news. But I also know something else about you. I know that there are people, you are watching me right now, because God is calling you to come closer, closer to him than you've ever been before. To know God, to walk into your destiny there is a purpose for your life. Yes, you, you, there is a purpose for your life. Don't you dare think your life is wasted. There is an important purpose for your life, but first you've got to know the one that loves you more than anyone else, and that is God the Father. And the only way you could know him is through the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. If you will pray right now and say, God forgive me of my sins, say it, God, forgive me of my sins, I believe that the blood of Jesus has washed them away and now that I am clean I make you my savior and Lord. Lord, Jesus, come inside of me. Take over my life. I love you, Lord. I've got to know you. I'm desperate to know you. Reach out right now as we go off the air. You begin to worship God. You say you don't know how? Do it anyway the best you know. He'll meet you. He will. He really will.